that they would have to vacate their homes and places of business it was

a tremendous shock to these people who had known the security of owner-
ship for so many years.

Even though the land belonged to the government the buildings had

been placed there by their owners and each man felt as secure and per-

manent as though the land actually belonged to him.
The first order was signed by Rear Admiral A. W. Marshall, U. S.

Navy Commandant of the Naval Air Station, Pensacola, Fla. It was

dated July 18, 1930, and was delivered "to each family head or license
holder."
Reservation order number 54 reads:

1. In pursuance to directions from the Secretary of the Navy the

following instructions concerning the Naval reservation and especially

the village of Warrington and the area locally known as Woolsey are

hereby promulgated:
(a) No further permits ,vill be granted by the Commandant for

use and occupancy of private dwellings or other structures in the village

of Warrington or the area locally known as Woolsey.
(b) No further transfers of any rights and privileges enjoyed

under existing licenses will be granted by the Commandant, thus, where
property is vacated or is at present unoccupied the license is hereby
terminated.

2. Under existing regulations, permission to reside on the reser-

vation is restricted to persons connected with the Naval Air Station,
those available for Government work and those engaged in a business

that will facilitate residence at the Naval Air Station are hereby

revoked.

3. All buildings at present unoccupied and those which may become
vacant from time to time in the future are required to be removed from

the reservation by the owners within thirty days after specific notifi-

cation by the Commandant unless an extension of this time is granted
in each individual case.

4. No permits will be granted for the relocation on any part of
the Naval reservation of any building required to be removed in accord-

ance with the above.

St. John's Episcopal Church, Moving to Warrington, 1931

I am going to talk about St. John's Episcopal Church. Now some-
time on a Sunday morning during 1931 we had a Church service in Old

Warrington in the church and the Bishop of Florida was at the service.
After the service he wanted us all to stay; he had a message for all of
us. He read the notice about evacuation from the reservation. His

recommendation was to do away with the church. That failed to meet

the wishes of the congregation. They wanted to move the church to New
Warrington and I don't know who contacted Steve Lee about the small

triangle but he did donate it to the church and the church was moved
to that triangle. The Bishop said he could not help us financially. I

don't know why he couldn't, he could have if he wanted to but he didn't.
We didn't get any money at all from the Bishop.

I am going to name all the ladies that had anything to do with
this and that were at the church service that morning. There was

Mrs. Dorothy Cook, Mrs. Isabell Waggoner, Mrs. Emily Jernigan, Mrs.

Josie Battle, Mrs. Erma Porster, Mrs. Ollie Johnson, Mrs. Norma Pou

and Miss Hilda Rance. We had there at that service, I believe, Rev.
John D. Thomas. In addition to him, we had old Uncle Jim Robinson,

Thornton Persons and A. E. Porster. I believe I got all the names,
if I left any out I'm sorry.

Now it is very easy to say that the church was moved to that

triangle in New Warrington. I want to say the ladies of the church
started to raise money to move the church. They got in touch with a
man in Milton who had a flat bottom truck and he wanted $300 to cut
up the church in pieces, move it to New Warrington and rebuild it.
It would cost us another V300 to build a new roof.
In a sense, that was where I really came into the picture. I had

a supervisory job at the Naval Air Station and I got some of my brains

St. John's Episcopal Church, Moving to Warrington, 1931 #2

that worked in the shop to come out to the church and we got together

and decided to cut the church in three equal pieces, that is across
the hip in the roof along near the window casings. In addition to the

brains, these men later cut the church into the three pieces. Then all

the truck driver got was the job of loading the three pieces on the

truck and delivery to New Warrington and splicing the pieces together.

He took the rear end of the church, which held the altar and a small

room first. He had to have four ropes hanging down from the roof.

Two men on each side holding the ropes. That was in order to keep the

building stabilized, that is to keep it from probably falling off the

truck. These men had to stay right with it, holding these ropes until

they got to where they were going to unload because there were some

pretty rough roads on the way over there.

Now they managed to make it all right that day with that one piece.

They put it off on the ground where it was suppose to be and they went

off for the night. Now the center section was the flooring, the roof

and the sides; there were no bulkheads to keep it from collapsing. We

had to do a lot of bracing on that piece, which we did. We managed to

get it on the truck and the men followed that over, walking, carrying

it, watching it all the way over until they managed to get to where
they were going. They unloaded it and they were through for that night.

On the third day the only part of the church that was left was the front

section. It had to be loaded on the truck. In a sense, it was the

easiest piece, the most stable piece out of all of it. But I wanted

the men to hold the ropes on that just the same as they did the others.
I didn't want to lose that; I didn't want that to fall off the truck.

St. John's Episcopal Church, Moving to Warrington, 1931 #5

So I followed in back of that crowd. They were walking, going up the
hill slowly. When I thought they were just about out of sight to
where they were doing fine, I was in a sense riding a bicycle, I went

back to my shop to go to work. Of course, I was just taking a little
time out to help the church along and I don't think I did anything
wrong by being out there. However, when I got home that night that
last section of the church was not in place. Lord, I wondered what
happened to it. I had to get my automobile, get on it, and retrace
the way the truck would have come. I knew I would find it somewhere;

I figured I would find the truck broke down somewhere with wheel trouble
or something like that. Instead of that, just about 50 feet after they
left me, those fellows decided that it wasn't necessary to balance that

piece, they would all get inside of it. So they all got inside of it
and the fellow started moving and he went about 50 feet. Well, on my
way looking for it, I found it over on the lot just about 50 feet from
where I left them. Or in other words, they probably moved 50 feet more

or less then the truck unbalanced and lost the load. The front end of

the church hit the ground on the side and collapsed. There was nothing
but a pile of pieces.
Well now, let me tell you something about Warrington just about

that time. The people down there were given a years' notice to move.
In other words the first notice was July 18, 1930 and here we were way
around in 1931 on the last month. It seems everybody else waited about
until the last month. Even the insurance companies waited. In other
words when you have a piece of real estate, you understand that the
insurance company has to give you 30 days notice if they are going to
cancel your fire insurance. Of course, if you don't pay your premium

St. John's Episcopal Church, Moving to Warrington, 1931 #4

you are out. However, if you paid your premium and they wanted to

cancel you out, they could do that if they gave you 30 days notice.

Well the Government gave everybody else this last 30 days notice after

giving them 11 months notice or a years notice. A lot of people did

not have time to move their houses and for some unknown reason it must

have gotten awfully warmout there. The weather must have been hot and

dry and there must have been a lot of fire flies around because every

night in Warrington something seemed to burn. There were bonfires or

house fires every night. When I knew that pile of, what you might say,

trash that belonged to the end of the church was piled up there I knew
that if somebody saw it they would just as soon put a match to it and

let it be one more fire.

They apparently didn't find it or didn't bother burning it. It

was there in the morning and it didn't take long when the truck came

for them to go down there, pick up these pieces and bring them back.

We let them lay around until they got the first two pieces finished,

that is got them spliced together and made a permanent house out of
those two pieces. Then we had to take the front end of it and actually

build. We built the front end of it. We had to use quite a bit of

new material being we only made sore cuts in the roof. When we finished

with the roof, doing all we had to do with it, that is the woodwork on

the roof, splice all the roof together, we were able to go out and get

a bundle of composition roofing to match the roof. It didn't take much
to do a good job of fixing up that roof which might have cost us $300.

It didn't cost us but about a bundle of roofing. The ladies went out

to some of the merchants and they were able to come back with a gallon of

paint here & a gallon of paint there and we were able to paint the whole

church white.

St. John's Episcopal Church, Moving to Warrington, 1931

The ladies also gave what they called a church fair to raise

money. They made things to sell and they held it at the church and

we built the booths. A Mr. Hoffman, of the Pensacola Electric Co. I

believe, loaned us a string of wires or lights to light up the place.
These lights were the same lights that we used to decorate Palafox St.
in the old days. They were colored lights. We used these lights two

or three years with the goodness of Mr. Hoffman.

I spoke of some brains that came out of the naval yard. Now these
brains, they all happened to be members of a Masonic Lodge, that is

Naval Lodge #24 of Warrington and some of them were members of the
church. So, they didn't mind coming out and giving a little bit of

their services.

Now there is one fellow I want to talk about. This fellow had

a general store out in Warrington and that was Jack Hertz. He was
very generous to the church in his donations. In a short time we were

able to hold services in the church in the new location. Then we raised
some money to put temlock throughout the church. We bought all the
temlock but we used volunteers to put it in place. If I am not mistaken,

I think Mr. Marshall fell over there putting up the temlock and was

injured. I don't know how badly he was injured but he was injured and

we all felt bad about that. Somebody donated brass electric fixtures

and installed them. I don't know who did that but somebody did it
and it was, I believe, a surprise to us to see the new fixtures in

place. I think that was about all that was done to the church until

1939 when we added a new wing to the church.

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Elections Politics

I had a very little experience in politics which I am now going

to talk about. In 1912, when I was working for the National Meter Co.,

some of my friends and men working for the National Meter Co. got inter-

ested in politics. We all joined the Bull Moose Party because we thought

that Teddy Roosevelt should go back in the White House and we did not

necessarily like Taft, the Republican, or Wilson, the Democrat, of the

older political parties and wanted a change. We were all young and we

thought the Bull Moose Party was the right party for those times and

we all worked hard for the party. Our party lost as you know; Wilson,

the Democrat, won.

We all got a lot of political experience and in a few years or

1916 I came to Pensacola where I got a lot more political experience.

In Pensacola if you wanted your vote to be counted, it was necessary

for you to register as a Democrat and pay a poll tax to nominate your

choice on the Democratic ticket. The one who got the most votes at

this Democratic Nomination Election was elected. Very little time was
spent on the General Election because the man had already been elected

by the Democrats.

Escambia County Real Estate

I'm going to talk a little bit about the real estate. Now this

real estate here is pretty low; I mean as far as the water level is
concerned. It seems all the land drains toward my property. To the

Mr. A. E. Porster
P. 0. Box 4747
Warrington, Florida
Dear Mr. Forster:
For over a year now the County Commissioners have attempted to
secure a right-of-way on a small road in Pou Station known as
Reeves Road. In the past we have been unable to maintain this

road in as much as the law prohibits our working on anything

other than the dedicated public road.
'he enclosed deed, when properly executed and returned to us,

will enable the County to open up Reeves Road all the way to

the beach. Of course, your deed is not the only one and all

of them must be returned before we will accept any. We would

greatly appreciate your donation of this right-of-way as we feel

it will enable the Board of County Commissioners to render a
valuable service to the individuals living on this road.
Yours truly,

B. B. Nichols
County Engineer
Now they also sent a quick claim deed that he wanted me to sign.

I'm not going to read it all, I'm just going to read a description

Escambia County Real Estate

of the property. They wanted the west 25 feet of the south 160 feet
of the north 460 feet of lot 4. The west 94'6" of the south 348'6"
to the north and 808'6" of the lot block 4 and the east 25' of the

east 100 feet of the south 145 feet of the north 447 feet of lot 5.
The south 580 feet of lot 5 all in accordance with the Mary Jackson

Plan as recorded in Deed Book "0" at page 455 of the Public Records
of Escambia County Florida and being a part of Section 51 Township
to south range 30 west for public road right-of-way. Or in other
words, 50 feet wide and 700 feet long from one end of my property
to the beach and I told him HELL NO!

Elections Politics

I had a very little experience in politics which I am now going

to talk about. In 1912, when I was working for the National Meter Co.,
some of my friends and men working for the National Meter Co. got inter-
ested in politics. We all joined the Bull Moose Party because we thought
that Teddy Roosevelt should go back in the White House and we did not
necessarily like Taft, the Republican, or Wilson, the Democrat, of the

older political parties and wanted a change. We were all young and we

thought the Bull Moose Party was the right party for those times and
we all worked hard for t4e party. Our party lost as you know; Wilson,
the Democrat, won.
We all got a lot of political experience and in a few years or

1916 I came to Pensacola where I got a lot more political experience.
In Pensacola if you wanted your vote to be counted, it was necessary
for you to register as a Democrat and pay a poll tax to nominate your
choice on the Democratic ticket. The one who got the most votes at

this Democratic Nomination Election was elected. Very little time was
spent on the General Election because the.man had already been elected
by the Democrats.